Soham murder trial hears more witnesses

The Soham double child murder trial entered its second day of witness evidence at the Old Bailey in London today.

Officials from Soham Village College, where defendant Ian Huntley worked as a caretaker, and townspeople involved in the search for missing girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were being called to give evidence.

Huntley, 29, denies murdering the 10-year-old friends but has admitted conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

His ex-girlfriend Maxine Carr, 26, a former classroom assistant at the girls’ primary school, denies conspiring to pervert the course of justice and two charges of assisting an offender.

The prosecution alleges she gave Huntley a false alibi for the day the girls went missing, Sunday August 4 last year. Their bodies were found in a remote ditch near Lakenheath, Suffolk, UK, 13 days later.

The first witness called by the prosecution today was Benjamin Hickling, managing director of a firm which supplies window films to stick on glass.

Mr Hickling told the court he had visited Soham Village College on March 21, 2002, and was shown around the site by Huntley.

As well as talking about windows, he said they had a more general and personal discussion during which they discovered they were both interested in aeroplanes.

Huntley said that one of the reasons he had moved to the area from Grimsby was that it was near the RAF base at Lakenheath.

Huntley told him he had found a “quiet area” where you could watch the planes take off.

Mr Hickling said: “It was an area that you were not supposed to go down.

“It was an area where he spent a lot of time, an area he enjoyed going to because of his interest in planes.

“He would say that no one ever goes down there.”

Mr Hickling said Huntley had referred to “we” when he talked about going to the area but did not say by whom he was accompanied.

Earlier this week the jury of seven women and five men visited a remote ditch near the Lakenheath airbase where the bodies of Holly and Jessica were found.

Mr Hickling was cross examined by Michael Hubbard QC, defending Carr.

He said he was “sure” Huntley had said “we” during the conversation.

Marcus Bull was then called to the witness box. Mr Bull, a cousin of Mr Hickling, was joint manager in the firm and went to Soham Village College for the meeting with Huntley.

The jury heard that during the tour of the school, a military aircraft flew overhead and the topic of conversation turned to aircraft.

Mr Bull said he had no particular interest in aircraft but recalled Huntley saying he did and had knowledge of planes and plane-spotting.

“He gave the impression he had access to somewhere where he could get to watch planes that was not available to others or not widely known,” Mr Bull added.

Under cross-examination by Mr Hubbard, he could not recall whether Huntley was referring to just himself or him and someone else.

“Whether he said I or we, I could not be clear but he was talking in the first person."

The next witness was Margaret Bryden, the vice-principal at Soham Village College, who was one of three on the interview panel when Huntley applied for the job of site manager.

She explained that their previous caretaker was suspended in July 2001 after it was felt that he had “an inappropriate relationship” with a 13-year-old female student.

The former caretaker, who was not named in court, was sacked in September 2001 and Huntley was interviewed on November 9.

Mrs Bryden, the chairman of governors and the college principal interviewed him and were keen to take “a cautious approach” because of their previous experience, she said.

They were introduced to Carr as his fiancee and he applied for the job under the name Ian Nixon.

Mrs Bryden said: “He was a young man for the post but someone who was very enthusiastic.

“He mentioned his father was a caretaker at Littleport Primary School.”

The interview included a hypothetical question in which all the candidates were asked to imagine that a girl on the college premises had become attracted to them, and were asked what action they would take.

Mrs Bryden said: “Huntley gave a very, very specific reply that he would be reporting it to myself as his line manager or to the principal if anything was untoward.”

She said he had told the panel he would “literally go through the procedure”, adding that he knew children were involved in his job but that his duties lay elsewhere.

Mrs Bryden said: “I would take it to mean that children are going to be around but they’re not my business and I will carry out my duties.”

Asked what she had thought of Huntley as a candidate, she said: “I was delighted. Here we had a very sensible approach to it, someone who was going to marry, whose fiancee was there, and a very level-headed person.”

She said he was very upfront about his lack of management experience, but said it was felt he could be offered training.

The vice principal said that the caretaker's house, 5 College Close, had been left in "embarrassing" and "very dirty" state by the previous tenant and had needed a complete renovation before Huntley and Carr moved in.

She said she telephoned Huntley and offered him the job “pending police protection checks for child protection”.

Huntley initially said he would have to give a month’s notice but phoned back after the weekend to say it was only a week.

He agreed that he could live with his father in Littleport for the short term while the house was renovated.

The renovation included taking out carpets which were very old and dirty and believed to be responsible for a smell in the house.

It was decided to use some blue corded carpet from the senior school to recarpet the house.

She said Huntley had paid for carpeting one of the upstairs bedrooms himself.

Mrs Bryden told the court a new vinyl floor had been laid in the kitchen downstairs and the toilet and bathroom.

During the renovation of the house, Huntley came to her and requested he move in early as the couple had been staying with Huntley’s father.

They moved into the house in December and the kitchen, main bedroom and bathroom were ready.

Later she conducted an inspection of the house, by prior arrangement, to check on the renovations.

She told the court the house was “very, very clean and tidy”.

“They had actually put wallpaper in the lounge and some transfers on tiles in the kitchen.”

She said they were creating a home rather than a house.

The jury heard that the garden had been left in a state but it was agreed enough had been spent on the house and the couple would have to renovate the garden themselves.

She added she was aware that a pet, a labrador cross, was being kept in the house but it did not concern her on that visit.

The college vice principal added that she thought the house would be maintained by Carr.

She added: “Ian was known to be an untidy worker and very often he had been reprimanded for not putting things away in the right place in school.”

Huntley would sometimes be left with "tears in his eyes" if there were disagreements about the way he was running the college site, Mrs Bryden said.

He was in charge of three other full-time caretakers and a part-time student and sometimes had difficulties managing his team.

The vice principal said: “To begin with, he found things very difficult. Managing people was something he had raised at interview but rather than manage them, he tried to befriend them at times, so we did have rather a lot of heated discussions about managing people.

“He would often get upset, could even have tears in his eyes and walk out of the office.”

She added: “He would return later and come into my office to discuss it, very often after school hours.”

Asked if he came on his own, she said: “Unfortunately not, although there were times when I didn’t realise he wasn’t on his own.”

She said he and two other caretakers had the security alarm codes and keys to the external doors for the college site.

But she said the alarm did not have to be deactivated to get to the caretaker’s office, the main hall, the kitchen or the gym.

The prosecution alleges that Huntley used a telephone in the kitchen office to telephone Carr in Grimsby shortly after the girls disappeared.

Mrs Bryden said he also had a series of mobiles given to him by the college as part of his job.

She said Carr had sometimes helped him to lock up the building after they moved into the

caretaker’s house.

She asked if Carr would be interested in a cleaning job on the site but was told she was keen to work as a voluntary learning support assistant at the nearby primary school, which Holly and Jessica attended.

Mrs Bryden said Huntley was often accompanied to meetings in her office by Carr.

She said: “I would say he would discuss the issues with me but she was waiting outside as if to ensure he had come to discuss it.”

She said there had been a major flash flooding incident at the school on July 30 2002 and large areas of carpet had been thrown in a skip which arrived outside the resource centre.

Huntley had been “very much” involved in that process, she said.

The flood had interrupted her holiday and Mrs Bryden left the school again on Friday August 2.

She said she heard about the girls going missing on Monday August 5, the day after it happened.

She knew Jessica particularly well because she had helped with organising a prom and she also knew Holly.

Mrs Bryden said she spoke to Huntley a number of times on the telephone in the following days.

On Thursday August 8 Huntley rang her while she was in a ladies toilet in a shop so she had to call him back.

Mrs Bryden said: “He said he was being hounded by the press and police and he needed to go away for the weekend.”

She said she had also spoken to Huntley on the phone on Tuesday August 13, the night there had been a report in the media that some recently disturbed earth had been found.

She said: “We talked about the possibility of the girls actually not being alive at that point and that facilities would have to be provided in school.

“He told me that he had been to his GP and he had been given medication and was being treated for depression and high blood pressure.”

She said she believed it was that night Huntley started to talk about being the last person to see the girls.

She said: “He told me he was the last person to see them alive.

“I questioned him on how could he be the last person to see them alive.

“He also said ’if only I had said something different’.

“He talked about seeing the girls and them asking about Maxine Carr and him saying she wasn’t very well after she hadn’t got a job at the primary school.”

She said that Huntley had told her several times he was the last person to see the girls alive.

The vice principal then told the court of another conversation with Huntley after she had spoken to Holly's father, Kevin Wells, the previous day, Wednesday - the day after the "false alarm" at Warren Hill when there were reports of disturbed earth.

She said Huntley had rung her to ask if she was attending a big public meeting at the site and she said no.

She added: “I also telephoned him. I had said to Kevin Wells the previous evening, on giving my relief they had not been found, that if there was another evening where he felt he needed some space, he only had to go round and collect the keys from Ian.”

She added: “Space by being on the school premises.”

The day after, Friday August 16, she had another telephone conversation with Huntley to discuss areas around the college site that might not have been searched thoroughly by police.

She told the court Huntley said there were areas he felt had been searched but there were other areas where the police had not been.

He suggested an access area to a ceiling and an area under a stage.

She was then asked about any particular interests Huntley had outside work.

“He was involved in plane-spotting and would very often spend a lot of time up at Lakenheath,” she said.

She added that following a visit to Huntley’s house after the defendant had an accident, she became concerned about the dog they kept there.

It had behaved aggressively towards her and they had had to control it.

At that point, Mr Latham said Huntley had indicated he would like a short break and the court rose.

Mr Latham described the hangar near the school where the girls' burnt clothes, including their Manchester United football shirts, were found.

He said there were two entrances at either end of the hangar.

Mrs Bryden confirmed that Huntley would have had keys to the hangar.

The clothes were found in a yellow bin inside the hangar.

Mrs Bryden said the bins were placed around the playing fields during term time for children to put their litter in.

She said there had been a delivery of 2,500 bin liners, which were used in the yellow bins, in June.

They were placed in the bins so there were already clean bags in the bottom when a full liner was removed.

She also said that Huntley had been given £200 or £300 at the end of term, which was for any equipment he had to buy over the holidays.

He would have to produce receipts for it later, she said.

Mr Latham returned again to the telephone conversation between the witness and Huntley at the time of the Warren Hill incident.

Mrs Bryden said: “I asked him of the whereabouts of Maxine Carr because I had seen her on TV. I was under the impression she had gone away for a week. He told me at that time she had never gone.”

The pair then discussed the “status” of the girls. “I still believed right until the Saturday the bodies were found that we would find them alive,” she said.

“I was asked by Ian what do I think, where were they? Did I think they were still alive? I said yes, I did.”

Huntley did not say what he believed, she added.

She then recalled Jessica and her mother coming into the school to pick up Jessica’s elder sister Rebecca, who was preparing for a school prom.

Jessica helped to twirl some streamers that Huntley was putting up in the hall for the prom night.

Mr Latham then moved to the part of the police investigation where a senior officer announced that a message was going to be left on Jessica’s voicebox on her mobile telephone.

The witness revealed she had a conversation with Huntley about mobile telephones. She said they discussed how you could charge up a mobile phone.

She said not all phones of the same type had the same connections and she added there was a way of transferring information via sim cards that children would know how to do.

“We were talking in general. He asked me ’well, how would they charge the telephone if it was dead?’. I think possibly he may have raised that topic.”

Mr Coward said: "Because of previous history, there were concerns.

“Therefore, all applicants were asked tricky questions.”

He said Huntley had answered in an “exemplary fashion” and Mrs Bryden agreed.

Mr Coward said the essence of his answer was that should a situation arise with a girl getting too close to the caretaker, he would report it to a senior member of staff.

He said: “In actual fact, it happened did it not, it happened in July.

“It was reported to you and dealt with by you.”

Mrs Bryden said: “It was not only reported to me but reported to the principal as well.

“I dealt with it with the girl in question.”

Mrs Bryden admitted that Huntley had “confided” in her.

Under cross examination by Carr’s barrister Michael Hubbard QC, Mrs Bryden said Huntley had talked to her about his father.

Mr Hubbard said: “He made some pretty shocking and outrageous allegations about his father, did he not?

“He made some pretty shocking allegations about what had happened to him in his early life.

“Did it ever occur to you that he lived in a world of his own fantasy?

“Did you ever think he was making things up?”

She said: “There were times I though he was exaggerating things but did not think he was making them up.”

The trial was adjourned until this afternoon.

The first witness after the lunch adjournment was Jonathan Butler, 18, the assistant caretaker at Soham Village College since October 2001.

He said Huntley’s car had smelt strongly of “body filler” in the days after the girls’ disappearance.

Mr Butler said he had travelled in Huntley’s red Ford Fiesta on Saturday August 3, the day before they went missing, when the two men and a friend went to the Black Horse pub in Littleport.

He said Huntley had mentioned that Carr was going to Grimsby that weekend.

He said the car was then tidy and clean but when he got in it a few days later, before the caretaker’s arrest, it had smelt strongly.

He said it was “a strong smell” like “body filler”.

Mr Butler could not remember exactly what day he had got into the red Ford Fiesta for the second time.

He said Huntley had commented on the smell but added that he could not remember what the older man had said.

They drove with the windows open.

On Sunday August 4 Mr Butler said he had seen Huntley in town and that Huntley had told him he was going to get a DVD.

The only place to rent DVDs in Soham was at the Blockbuster shop near the war memorial, Mr Butler said.

Mr Butler said he arrived at the college for work shortly before 8am the day after the girls went missing and spoke to Huntley in the caretaker's office.

Mr Butler said: “He asked me if I knew anything about two missing girls - that was the first I heard of it.”

He said Huntley talked about searching with the police.

He was not wearing his normal work clothes and he looked “tired”.

Mr Butler was asked about the hangar near the college where the girls’ burnt clothes were later found in a bin.

He said he used to go into the hangar to get a petrol-driven sweeper and the fuel for it was kept in a red can.

Asked by Mr Latham if he had seen the petrol can after the girls went missing, he said: “Yes, I gave it to Ian. I can’t remember where I was when I gave it to him.”

He said he had seen the can in the office later and it was full but he could not remember when that was.

Mr Butler also said it was his job to collect yellow bins from the playing field and store them in the hangar.

He was asked how he would dispose of a full bin liner from one of the bins and he said he would tie it and throw it in a skip.

Mr Butler was then asked to demonstrate to the court how he would tie a bin bag.

He told the jury he would often take his breaks from work, between 10.30am and 11am, with Huntley at 5 College Close.

He remembered the house as being “spacious and tidy” and, as well as the kitchen, he had been in the downstairs toilet and living room.

Under cross-examination by Stephen Coward QC, defending Huntley, Mr Butler agreed that in a statement to police he told them the journey in Huntley's car when he noticed a smell was on Friday August 16, not the Saturday.

Mr Butler described the Polyfilla smell as being sweet and strong and sticking in the throat.

He was then shown a photograph of the open boot of Huntley’s red Ford Fiesta showing tools and a red petrol can inside.

Mr Butler said the petrol can was identical to the one kept at the school but he did not know how it got into the boot of the car if it was the same can.

Under cross-examination by Michael Hubbard QC for Carr, Mr Butler was shown a previous statement he made to police which conflicted with his earlier evidence.

In the statement, read out in court, Mr Butler said he had gone to Huntley’s house on Saturday August 3 at around 6.30pm.

Huntley was carrying shopping into his kitchen and Mr Butler said in a statement that Carr called from Grimsby.

The court was told an electronic log of a phone call from Grimsby from Carr’s mobile to Huntley’s mobile was recorded.

Mr Hubbard said this suggested that Mr Butler knew of a call from Carr to Huntley on that Saturday.

The witness said he could not remember. Nor could he remember being offered a lift to Grimsby by Carr when she was planning the trip.

Mr Hubbard again referred to his statement, in which he said Huntley had offered him a lift to Grimsby but he decided not to go and neither did Huntley.

The statement said Carr was supposed to be going for a week to see her mother but returned home early on the Tuesday.

Again Mr Butler said he could not recall what he said in the statement.

The next witness was Jonathan Watkins, whose girlfriend Mary Norman worked at the Ross Peers Sports Centre in Soham.

She was working on the night the girls went missing and closed up the bar of the sports centre at about 10.30pm.

At about that time another employee of the sports centre, Mark Abbott, came to the front door and said that two little girls wearing Manchester United tops had gone missing.

The three of them went outside, where they were joined by a fourth person, and were talking when they saw another person coming towards them.

Mr Watkins said the man, who he later discovered was Huntley, was walking from the sports centre car park towards the nearby primary school and had a dog with him.

Mr Watkins said: “I said ’Have you seen two little girls?’.

“He said ’No’ and I think he said he had been away and he was just walking his dog.”

Mr Watkins said Mr Abbott had told him the man was the college caretaker. Huntley had then asked who the missing girls were, and was told their names.

Mr Watkins said: “He said he hadn’t seen them.”

Huntley walked away after the five-minute conversation and the others searched until about 4.30am the next morning.

At about 3am Mr Watkins, his girlfriend and Mr Abbott went back to the sports centre with police to see if the girls were on the centre’s CCTV footage.

Mr Latham asked: “While you were doing that, did you see anyone else who you had seen earlier on that evening?”

Mr Watkins replied: “Ian Huntley.”

The witness said the lights were on at the sports centre and that Huntley walked into the reception area and stood on the other side of the glass, with his dog.

He said: “I think he asked us, did we have any tape.”

Mr Watkins said he was not sure if anyone had replied or what Huntley was doing.

He said the weather that night was “really foggy” and that he and his girlfriend had stopped searching at about 4.30am but decided to go back and have another look at 6am when it started to get light.